I've stopped counting the number of tablets used by restaurant and pub staff to place orders (one place took your drink order and left you an iPad open to the menu). You selected and sent your order through it, then could use it to browse the news or give it to the kids to play preloaded games while waiting for the order to arrive). I also cannot count the number of TV news anchors using a tablet in place of or to supplement the monitors. They respond to tweets and Facebook posts in realtime and during commercial breaks. Credit card readers with tablets have given POS stations new flexibility. My insurance agent will not go to an appointment now without his in tow. Other sales units press their agents to stop saying to the customer "I will fix it as soon as I get back to the office" and want them to conclude the business on the spot. Tablets enable this without the suitcase which once accompanied them. Only entertainment consumption - nay, limited to the imagination of the IT staff and ability of IT management to influence the business delivery model IMHO. As for the subject of the article, sounds like any other Service Pack release and 5-6 months doesn't seem odd.

I think you're bringing up a noteworthy distinction, UberGoober. There are a ton of iPads in the enterprise, but a lot of them are used as secondary devices for information access, as you say. One of the big research firms (Forrester, if I remember) even did a study that drew that conclusion-- that iPads are often used alongside, rather than in place of, traditional PCs.

That said, I'm astonished how often I see people typing on their iPads. At every event I attend, I see journalists and analysts typing away on glass screens. Not just shorthand notes—full paragraphs, often punched out at a surprisingly quick rate. Personally, I still want a physical keyboard in situations like that-- and indeed, conventional laptops (albeit with a higher-than-average MacBook representation) are still far more ubiquitous at those events. But it's clear that people are increasingly using tablets for content creation. I don't think there will be a tipping point where touchscreens takes over for "real work," or that physical keyboards are going away, or anything like that—but I've heard analysts say that more words will be typed this year on glass than on actual keys. I'm not sure if I believe that, but the fact that it's even close tells you that tablets are being used for more than watching videos. (Though I concede a lot of those words will be dedicated to vapid text messages and Facebook status updates on smartphones.)

For productivity tasks that require quick exchanges or that involve moving or slightly modifying information, tablets can actually be preferable to traditional form factors. I'm not going to get rid of my computers any time soon; I need them for substantive writing, spreadsheets, video and photo editing, and other tasks that don't tablets very well. But I think the "content consumption vs. productivity" debate involves a lot of rigid definitions about what constitutes "real work" and what doesn't. There are shades of gray, and tablets occupy lots of them.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Bluetooth keyboards and cases like Zagg with built in keyboard (have you tried? really great) mean you do not have to type on tablet screen. I know lots and lots of sales people who do almost all work on a tablet. Not just sales, either. Varies by industry but even in insurance...lots of tablets. core apps running on tablets. Talk to these CIOs: It is not optional.

Interesting point, UberGoober. Some of the same people who leaked accurate Update 1 rumors claim that windowed Modern apps will arrive in Windows 9 next year. But by then, too little too late? It seems like a feature that might have been included from the start-- what's the delay? And are there any Modern apps that users are hankering to run in a window on the desktop?

I don't suppose you would care to make a small wager on how most tablets are used, would you?

Yes, many are used essentially as big-screen smart-phones in business, but even then, the vast majority are used for information consumption; very few are used for much besides reading or looking stuff up. For consuming information they are unquestionabley handy, but for most uses, tablets are terrible for creating it; typing on glass and pointing with a half-inch-wide finger makes for terrible ergonomics.

You can trot out the old bromide about salespeople all you want (people have been doing it for well over a decade), but you can't say with straight face that 20% of tablets are used primarily for business; I'd bet the number is much less than 10%.

For the C-level meetings, c'mon. Nobody is more style-obsessed than a high-level corporate guy. Actual business use is not guaranteed by having an iPad in your hand.

Agreed, Laurie. I find tablets limiting for certain kinds of productivity, but I think it's inaccurate and myopic to whitewash tablets as consumption devices. We explored various workplace tablet use cases in a magazine article last spring, and just today, Eric Zeman stated most knowledge workers could probably get by with Samsung's new 12-inch tablet.

Oh, PowerShell... There's an industry of Microsoft partners who exist just to make PowerShell less difficult to deal with.

Anyhow, you bring up an interesting point. Microsoft brought a bunch of enterprise capabilities online with Windows 8.1, but some are still missing. But is that really what's keeping enterprises from adopting?

I would disagree that tablets are primarily "entertainment-consuming platforms." In all manner of industries, salespeople are using tablets as primary device now -- at home office and in the field. Many knowledge workers can do what they need to on a tablet. Tablets may have started out as "nice to have" but they have become must-have at many enterprises. Also, go to any C-level gathering (board meeting, conference, etc.) and you will see all tablets.

There is no way anything that can be called a 'tweak' will fix Win8. If M$ wants to keep the 'Modern' UI for real computers (as opposed to tablets, which are primarily entertainment-consuming platforms), it should be in a window inside the traditional desktop.

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.